Social Preservationists and the Quest for Authentic Community

Abstract

In contemporary urban and rural America there is a social process separate and distinct from gentrification: social preservation. Social preservation is the culturally motivated choice of certain people, who tend to be highly educated and residentially mobile, to live in the central city or small town in order to live in authentic social space, embodied by the sustained presence of old‐timers. Social preservationists view old‐timers as indispensable to preserving a pristine “social wilderness” and as arbiters of authentic community. For this reason, they engage in efforts to limit the displacement of those original residents they deem to be truly authentic. Ethnographic data from two Chicago neighborhoods and two small Massachusetts towns describes and analyzes the ethic and practice of social preservation.

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